One of the nation's largest manufacturers of light rail vehicles announced Monday that it will form a partnership with two other companies in its bid to build cars for a Los Angeles County transit line. Siemens Dueway Corp. of Sacramento will team up with TRW Aerospace of Redondo Beach and AAI Corp. of Baltimore in competing for a contract to manufacture 87 cars for the Metro Green Line.

One of the nation's largest manufacturers of light rail vehicles announced Monday that it will form a partnership with two other companies in its bid to build cars for a Los Angeles County transit line. Siemens Dueway Corp. of Sacramento will team up with TRW Aerospace of Redondo Beach and AAI Corp. of Baltimore in competing for a contract to manufacture 87 cars for the Metro Green Line.

Boeing Co. and Hill Air Force Base in Odgen, Utah, have won a nine-year contract that could be worth as much as $1 billion to perform depot maintenance on a wide range of Air Force planes, the company and the Air Force said. The team beat out another composed of Lockheed Martin Corp., GEC Marconi Avionics Inc. and AAI Corp.

providence, r.i. -- Textron Inc. said Monday that it would purchase United Industrial Corp. for about $1.1 billion in a deal that company officials said underscored the importance of unmanned aircraft to the U.S. military. The transaction would help Textron expand its aerospace and defense business. United Industrial's AAI Corp. unit, based in Hunt Valley, Md., makes aerospace and defense systems including unmanned aircraft and ground control stations and counter-sniper devices.

Following through on a promise to build light-rail car components in Los Angeles County, Siemens Duewag Corp. said Thursday that it has selected a site in Carson where it will assemble the outside shells for train cars that will run on the Metro Green and Blue lines. The plant will begin operating in January, and the first car is scheduled to roll off assembly lines in October, said Bill Mutschler, vice president of the Sacramento-based firm, a unit of Siemens of Germany.

With its armored doors and bulletproof windows, the burly Humvee has been a stalwart ground transport for the U.S. military. But now the Pentagon thinks the hulking vehicle should also be able to fly. On Tuesday, Pratt & Whitney's Rocketdyne division in Canoga Park announced that it had been awarded $1 million to design a propulsion system for a flying Humvee. Don't scoff ? there is good reason for an airborne truck, defense officials say. With the proliferation of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, on the ground, a hovering Humvee would be an ideal way to keep soldiers out of harm's way, Pentagon officials said in announcing the award.

The Army is searching for an automatic rifle to replace the M-16, which soldiers have used since the Vietnam War. The goal is to develop a weapon that will make the 21st-Century soldier twice as effective at wounding or killing enemy troops, overcoming battlefield stress and unpredictable targets.

There is little time to think. An enemy attack plane comes roaring across the horizon from behind a distant hill. A soldier in full combat gear raises a portable anti-aircraft missile launcher to his shoulder, picks up the attacking jet and fires off a Stinger missile. The action is fast--it all happens in a matter of seconds. The infrared-seeking missile locks on its target, and a hit is marked by an exploding ball of fire.

Local transit officials Thursday recommended the awarding of a $205-million contract for 72 Green Line cars to a U.S.-German team that promises to open a Los Angeles plant that will be the nation's first modern manufacturer of rail cars. The award to Siemens Duewag Corp., a German company with a Sacramento facility, would create about 200 jobs in California and pump $17 million into the state's economy, company officials said.